NATO military drills planned for the Black Sea have been postponed or canceled outright, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said, citing a decades-old convention which gives Ankara veto power over naval deployments in the region.
Speaking to Anadolu in an interview on Tuesday, the foreign minister explained Turkey’s reluctance to cooperate with the Western sanctions campaign against Russia in response to its attack on Ukraine, stating that his country is seeking to avoid increased tensions as it attempts to broker a negotiated end to the conflict.
“If we had joined the sanctions, we would not have been able to fulfill the mediation role that we have now. We applied the Montreux Convention to warships, but the airspace, that corridor, we have to keep it open,” he said, referring to a 1936 agreement granting Turkey rights to regulate maritime traffic through the Black Sea.
“We have, in accordance with the convention, canceled or postponed planned NATO drills. We play an important role, and we fulfill our obligations,” Cavusoglu added.
Turkey has invoked the Montreux Convention to deny a number of Russian warships access to the Black Sea via the Bosporus strait since the conflict in Ukraine started in February, though it has made exceptions for vessels returning to their home ports, as provided under the agreement.